Ain’t Yo Vovó’s Kale Soup!

Being Portuguese, I love both making and eating kale soup.  It had been dark and gloomy for the better part of the day and soup was sounding awfully perfect as I left work. There was a double rainbow in the sky and the darkness was subsiding as I made my way to the store to gather the ingredients I’d need.

Since I was unsure if Chourico [Portuguese Sausage] contained wheat as a filler, I opted for Andouille Chicken Sausage from Trader Joe’s.  The ingredients I used for this batch were a mixture of both traditional ingredients as well as some creative substitutions I’ve opted for in order to suit our palates.

The recipe below  filled a 16qt. stock pot. I make a lot of soup in order to have plenty to freeze in individual portions for lunches. Feel free to switch up the sausage used as well as the spices, the key ingredient to making kale soup is as one could assume….KALE!

Ingredients:

• 2 small cans of Kidney beans
• 1 large can of diced tomatoes [I drain the juice, but you can certainly opt not to.]
• 1 bunch of kale [Stemmed and chopped loosely.]
• 2 small yukon gold potatoes or red russet potatoes
• 2 small-ish yams/sweet potatoes
• 4 Andouille Chicken Sausage links [Any other fully cooked sausage would do.]
• 1 large yellow onion
• 3-4 carrots [You can add more or omit entirely.]
• 3 celery stalks[Again, you can add more or omit if you're not a celery fan.]
• 2-1/2 tbsp. dried parsley
• 1-1/2 tbsp. smoked paprika
• 1 tbsp. dried basil
• 4 cups beef broth [Taste the soup...if it needs more, add more! I'd suggest buying "Better than Bouillon" it's a paste that you add to boiling water..it's delicious and easy to work with!]
• 4 cups water [Again, taste the soup..you may need to add more.]
• 2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

1. Dice onion, Chop carrots and celery so that they are roughly the same size and add to stock pot along with olive oil, parsley, basil, and paprika. Sautee until onions are translucent.
2. Chop sweet potatoes/yams as small as you cut carrots and celery to insure that they cook properly along with Yukon golds. The Yukon golds are a much softer potato [Which you'll notice as you chop them.]. Add to stock pot and sautee along with onion carrots and celery for at least 3-4 minutes.
3. While potatoes are sauteing chop sausage to whatever size suits you.  If the sausage is a ‘fully cooked’ sausage, you don’t have to worry about them being raw when the other ingredients are already cooked.
4. Add sausage and toss around for about 2 minutes.
5. Add beef stock and water to pot and bring to a boil.
6. Once at a boil add can of tomatoes and kidney beans. Lower temperature to a simmer.
7. Allow to simmer until potatoes are almost at the consistency you’d like, add in chopped kale and allow to simmer until potatoes are fully cooked.
8. Serve accompanied with whatever your soup loving heart desires.  I served mine with rice crackers and rosemary & olive oil Asiago cheese. Yum!